This invention relates to devices for selectively dispensing medicines, particularly to devices that arrange combinations of pills in a predetermined order and allow them to be dispensed by physically or mentally infirm persons with minimal difficulty at appropriate times.
It is often the case that persons with great physical or mental infirmities, such as congenital deformities, upper extremity amputations, arthritis, or borderline mental functioning, have a need to take one or more medications several times a day each day of the week. The medications are typically oral medications taken in the form of a pill. Because of such physical infirmities, it is frequently difficult for such persons to manipulate medicine containers to extract the pills, to understand consistently which pills are to be taken in what combination and when they are to be taken, or even to remember to take the pills at all.
While a variety of different pill dispensers have previously been devised, none satisfactorily meets the needs of the physically or mentally infirm. For example, Majka U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,247 discloses a pill dispenser having pill containers arranged in a matrix, each container corresponding to a day of the month, but the pills are dispensed from multiple containers by a single mechanism actuated by rotating a key placed in a slot, which is a relatively complicated and difficult system for a physically infirm person to use.
Another approach to dispensing medication is
represented by Barham British Patent No. 2,205,306 and Behl U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,884, which disclose electrically operated automatic medication dispensers, but are very complex technically, and intimidating and difficult to use by the physically infirm. A somewhat related device is discloned in Simon U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,991, which shows a device for storing an signaling the time for taking drugs.
McLaughlin U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,042; Fites U.S. Pat. No. 3,587,517; and Will U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,819 all disclose pill dispensers that arrange the pills in a matrix of containers, but do little to facilitate identification of which pills to take when or extraction of the pills from the containers in a way that would be convenient for the physically infirm.
Another approach to organizing pills in a matrix is represented by Katz U.S. Pat. No. 3,278,010, which employs individual dispensing elements and respective troughs. In this case the pills must be dispensed by twisting the dispensing elements, which would ordinarily be a difficult task for the physically infirm, and the pills are all dispensed at different locations
However, it can be seen that there is a need for a pill dispensing device that not only organizes pills in an orderly and understandable way so that they can be dispensed at the appropriate time, but that is straightforward and easy for the physically or mentally infirm to operate.